1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to enabling authorized access to a network and, more particularly, to electronic services in a wireless local area network, especially by issuing portable, physical tickets encoded with machine-readable indicia for presentment at an electro-optical reader.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet computer network is gaining ever-increasing significance in the world of science, technology, information and commerce among many others. The Internet will be well known to the skilled reader but, in brief summary, comprises a network of computers practically worldwide and accessible from any access point suitably linked to retrieve information contained in the Internet. Various sub-networks exist within the Internet, one of the best known of which is the worldwide web.
Information is commonly stored on the Internet in the form of “pages,” often comprising a “home page” relating to a general site and providing guidance and access to the contents at that site, the contents being contained in “sub-pages”. A site includes a unique Internet Protocol address or Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The site can thus be accessed from any access point to the Internet by entering the relevant address and displaying the site held at that address. The user accesses the Internet via a client computer, for example, a personal computer linked to the Internet. The link will typically be via a modem and telephone line, and a service provider or server acts as interrnediary, the client accessing the Internet via the server. In addition, the server allows the user to set up an Internet site. It will be appreciated that the server generally comprises a fixed station. Such an arrangement can give rise to an unnecessary level of inflexibility. In particular, it is often time consuming and unnecessarily complex to have to access the fixed station server to set up or access an Internet site.
Various developments to Internet related systems have been disclosed in various patents. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,550,984 relates to a security system for connecting computer networks, U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,162 relates to abridge for connecting parallel processors to the external environment, U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,494 relates to a routing protocol for multicast messages across the Internet, U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,842 relates to message transmission between firewall servers, U.S. Pat. No. 5,410,754 relates to an interface between a wire line carrier and a remote host on a Local Area Network (LAN), U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,335 relates to an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)—LAN connection terminal, U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,283 relates to packet transmission across a series of modes in a network, U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,237 relates to a network of LAN's connected to an ISDN including a plurality of routers/sub-routers, U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,437 relates to a bridge-type device for coupling segments of an extended LAN, U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,468 relates to a terminal adapter for connecting a LAN and a Wide Area Network (WAN) using an Internet Standard Protocol, U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,789 relates to graphically displaying computer network topology, U.S. Pat. No. 5,229,988 relates to a system for classifying duplicate source address replies, U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,860 relates to a system for determining the nodes connected to a computer network, U.S. Pat. No. 5,166,931 relates to a system for an inter-network arranged to simplify the network addressing system, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,442,633 relates to a method for routing a data packet between a mobile host and a destination host via a wireless link between the mobile host and a base station. The base station acts as a physical location of the mobile host and is linked to the network via a LAN sub-network.
The mechanism of file name translation across a distributed network is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,483,652, incorporated herewith by reference.
A range of products has been developed for enhancing the Internet connectivity of existing devices. In particular, these products are designed to connect electronic products to the worldwide web such as cellular phones, cable T.V. set-top boxes, televisions, personal digital assistants and pagers, providing the infrastructure, applications and services to allow these devices browsing capability across the Internet. One such product is available under the trademark REMOTE MOSAIC, which converts browsing into a client service operation in which lightweight “viewers” are custom-integrated into devices which connect to a “proxy browser” on a remote server. The proxy browser handles applications demanding excessive process or memory capabilities such as caching and connects the device to other servers.
In another aspect, there are numerous situations in which an instantaneous image of a scene or object is of considerable use and importance, for example, in insurance claims documentation where it is vital to document as accurately and completely as possible the circumstances against which the insurance claim is made. Conventionally, details are documented either in writing or by taking photographs using a film camera. This information is then subsequently entered with all other information relating to the insurance claim. Such a system is time consuming and error-prone, in particular because of the subsequent re-entry of information and transfer of the physical photograph to the relevant file. Similar problems arise, for example, in news coverage of an incident, police or other authorities' incident reports and so forth.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,994 relates to a multimedia information delivery network system. A wide area transmitter transmits the multimedia programs, which are received by a plurality of network servers for re-transmission to downstream network servers or a user. The programs are cached at the network servers as determined by a scheduler for efficient delivery of the multimedia program to each user.
In another aspect, data terminals connected to the Internet are conventionally required to download applets in an appropriate agent implementation language from a host, which is a complex and slow process.
Public spaces, such as airports or shopping malls, are being equipped with wireless local area networks which offer electronic services to their customers. To do so, controls must be in place to authenticate the customers, offer privacy and anonymity, and to properly provision the services to various classes of customers.